Using Virtual Reality to Assess the Street Crossing Behavior of Pedestrians With Simulated Macular Degeneration at a Roundabout

Frontiers in ICT

Bodenheimer, Bobby¹  Wu, Haojie¹  Adams, Haley¹  Ashmead, Daniel H.² 

[1] Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Vanderbilt University, United States;Department of Hearing and Speech Sciences, Vanderbilt University, United States

关键词: Macular Degeneration;    gap affordances;    Street crossing;    virtual traffic simulation;    perception and action coupling;    Roundabout;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fict.2018.00027

学科分类：计算机网络和通讯

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

This work investigates how pedestrian street crossing behavior at a virtual traffic roundabout is affected by central visual field loss. We exposed participants with normal vision to a first-person virtual experience of central visual field loss of variable size in the form of a simulated scotoma, an area of the visual field with degraded visual acuity. A larger size of scotoma influenced people to select longer gaps between traffic, and to wait longer before initiating a crossing. In addition, a gender difference was found for risk taking behavior. Male subjects tended to take more risk, as indicated by the selection of shorter gaps in traffic and a shorter delay before the initiation of a crossing. Our findings generally replicate those of studies done in real-world conditions using participants afflicted with genuine central vision loss, supporting the hypothesis that virtual reality is a safe and accessible alternative for investigating similar issues of public concern.

【 授权许可】

CC BY